It’s been around for a while now, but in 2012 we saw serious growth in Cloud deployments and it will continue to accelerate this year. Cloud back-up, email and virtual servers make sense for many businesses and suppliers like Amazon Web Services have announced ultra-aggressive pricing that makes the move to Cloud even more attractive.

NOT!Phablets

These 6-inch half-phone half-tablet “Phablets” are designed for those who find the iPhone too small to use for email and web. The problem is many of us think they are too small to be a decent tablet and too clunky to be a pocket-sized phone. There is a market for Phablets in 2013, but it is small.

HOT! Hybrid laptops

We saw the launch of the first hybrid laptops late last year - the “cool” laptops that transform into a tablet in the blink of an eye. Driven largely by the launch of Windows 8 we will only start to realise their full potential when we start using the new Windows version. You can expect the word to spread in 2013 and as a result the sales of hybrid laptops will spike.

NOT!Desktop PCs

You’d be forgiven for thinking the old style tower PCs are all but extinct but surprisingly quite a few businesses are still buying them. Sure, you can upgrade the memory and hard disk space as required, however, with laptops being so cheap these days (even cheaper than PCs), they are the smart choice. Moreover, laptops are mobile, come with an inbuilt battery (no need for a UPS) and they are powerful enough to support most workloads both today and tomorrow.

HOT! Inkjet & 3D printing

This year a few big brands will announce inkjet printers that print faster and cheaper than laser. Inkjet has a reputation for printing high quality photos, and with the latest technology they now put the price and quality of laser printing to shame – even in the office. 3D printing will continue to excite early adopters and sales will grow as prices fall.

NOT! QR Codes

The idea behind QR codes is nice – scan the code with your phone and it will open up a website or save a business card. Only problem is people aren’t using them (only 9% of consumers used QR last year). Scanning a QR code still takes a bit of effort and more recently virus writers have used QR codes to mask dubious URLs. We don’t think QR adoption will grow in 2013 because what you don’t know can hurt you.

HOT! Windows 8

Windows 8 had a slow start when it launched back in October. Quite simply there were not enough new features to convince business owners to upgrade immediately, and many were burnt by the upgrade from Windows XP to Vista. However Windows 8 is proving to be both powerful and stable so we expect to see strong sales in 2013, particularly as more employees demand tablets for work.

NOT! Windows RT Tablets

What was Microsoft thinking with the launch of Windows RT? The beauty of Windows 8 Pro is that you can finally buy a tablet that’s as powerful as a laptop, but Windows RT restricts you from most Windows 8 features so you end up with what feels like an inferior version of an iPad or Android tablet. Like Samsung, we think most hardware manufacturers will stop making RT-compatible tablets this year.

Mistakes: Staff Purchase makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information but takes no responsibility for any editorial, photographic or typographic errors. Staff Purchase reserves the right to correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions and to change or update information and offers at any time without prior notice.